Mending the Blur (a Forever & Always novel) Read online

  “I’D SAY I’M SORRY, but I’m not–not for kissing you, not for you pulling me closer, and definitely not for everyone in this arena who witnessed that moment. But I’m maybe a tiny bit sorry that you’ll have to explain that to you husband.” I smirk, I’m really not sorry. How dare she get hitched and not tell me. Yeah, we’ve not talked in a few years, but when you have the kind of relationship we had, the history, the chemistry… neither distance nor time can ever destroy it. I felt it in her kiss, in her perusal; I feel it just looking at her blush stained cheeks.

  “Wh-what?” Adalyn stammers, clearly trying to regain her composure before looking out onto the court. The game is about to reconvene, and my guy’s team is down by seven.

  Chuckling softly, I do the same, and by the end of the third quarter, OKC is up by ten and I have my girl beside me. It’s crazy how much you can miss a person when you go from talking daily to not at all, and I think we’ve both figured that out. One thing is certain, I will never let this much time go by again without demanding a response. I know she’s upset with me for things I cannot control, at least not now.

  “ADDY, ARE YOU SURE you’re good with staying here? I promise it’s not a big deal to get you over to the hotel.”

  “Brenton, go to bed. Goodnight, Mads, love you.” Adalyn laughs at Brenton’s obvious uncertainty.

  “Did you let him know?” Brenton asks looking from Adalyn to me multiple times before being slowly dragged away by his girlfriend.

  “Let me know what?” I ask confused, just as Braxton excuses himself to bed before shit gets awkward.

  “Nothing, and drop it, Bubs, go to bed,” she says without humor.

  “Whatever, you know you need to,” was the last thing from Brenton before he willingly followed Madison to their room.

  “Weird,” I mumble before grabbing two waters from the fridge and settling in a recliner. I’m thinking a chair is the safest place for me, that welcoming couch just screams a bad idea. On second thought… no. Even though the remainder of the game and dinner went effortlessly, the couch may push my self-restraint to its limits and it’s pretty fucking strained at this point.

  “Yeah, so…” her words trail off as she stands to look around the room, “I’m kind of tired, but want to catch up, want to go chill in your room like old times?”

  I quirk an eyebrow and look at her appraisingly.

  “I mean as friends. You keep your hands to yourself. And your lips,” she rasps out dragging her eyes from my lips to my eyes and then squeezes them shut.

  “I love that you have to clarify that more for yourself than for me, yet I’m not the one with the husband,” I taunt before making my way to the room I was originally taking over for the weekend, well that was before Ads showed up. I’ll take the couch… the cold, empty couch.

  “No clarification needed, Bray, just shut up and go.” Once I’m settled, I click the television onto ESPN and wait for the girl I cannot believe I’ve been so long without. I feel like just yesterday, this would have been us, naturally falling into bed to catch up on the day as the highlights scroll on the sports channel. I’ve yet to feel the awkward I really don’t know who you’ve become moment surface.

  “Sorry, I know! I’ll make it up to you. I promise. Goodbye, darlin’,” she says hanging up the phone and approaches the bed I’m lying on. Her long dark locks now piled into a mess on the top of her head, her contacts out and glasses in place accentuating her dark brown eyes, and her body covered in fleece pajamas. Fleece? It’s not even cold here.

  “Seriously?” I question the pajamas, but honestly she’s still smoking hot.

  “It’s freezing in this god forsaken place.” She mock shivers before crawling under the covers I’d pulled back for her and tossing her phone onto the nightstand. “Oh, the highlights reel! I always watch for Bub’s name to appear after a game when I can’t make it.”

  “Comfortable?” I laugh looking over at her with the covers tucked tightly around her. “I’ve never seen you actually clothed in a full set of pajamas and covered up. So… weird. This is all weird, comfortable but bizarre.”

  “Shut up, I don’t like the cold. I’m a southerner.”

  “Yeah, I know. Braxton told me you bought the bungalow–without actually communicating with him nonetheless.”

  “Listen, don’t beat me up for doing what I had to do to get through my unwelcomed shit storm,” she grumps before eying me. “Play nice.”

  “Okay, Sensitive Sally.” I smirk, sinking into the pillows behind me and interlacing my fingers before locking them behind my head. Feeling Adalyn’s eyes on me, I need a distraction, I will a distraction… before I beg, barter, and steal her body to be used as my pleasure, and husband be damned. Oh lookie, mood killer. “Tell me about him.”

  “Who?” she asks seemingly confused.

  “Your husband,” I say eyeing her ringless finger.

  “Or not. It won’t be a relevant topic before long anyway. What is it you do now?”

  “Deflection, not your typical move, but let’s go with it.” I shrug. “I’m working at the university in Columbia. I’m one of the three staff nutrition and sports medicine therapists. It’s a good job, I get to hang out while working, and made some new friends; you know, adulting. What about you?”

  “I’m a charge nurse for Dr. Watret’s patients both at the clinic and hospital near campus. Now continue on about you,” she deadpans her request for me to continue. I remember Dr. Watret, she was Adalyn’s favorite mentor.

  “Nothing like spending endless hours in vaginas…” I laugh before continuing on about my situation from home. “So, Carter Jacobs, my guy, he’s a cool dude. I helped him through a really rough patch in life. Although he really never connected the dots to whom I was until recently.” I start and continue when I look over and see her brow furrowed. “He’s Hannah James’s fiancé. That’s the woman whose car was impaled by my truck a few years ago this month.”

  “The truck Keelie was driving, and also the said truck you claimed to be driving for whatever stupid ass reason?” she counters, catching me off guard. I knew she’d understand my telling her she knew the truth, but I never thought she’d hold on to it like that.

  “Adalyn.” I start, but she cuts me off.

  “No, wait. I waited months to say this after that accident. If you weren’t that baby’s father why in the fuck would you cover for her stupid ass? Also, I know the girl was okay, Hannah, right? Because you never went to prison for a crime you didn’t commit. Did they even do anything or did they look at your license, sniff your breath because you’d only been drinking vodka and give you the pass?”

  “Jesus,” I grumble. Nothing like throwing it all out there. “Shut up so I can talk.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously. So you’re right. I wasn’t driving. But I just lost my mom, yeah sounding like a big ole titty-sucker being a momma’s boy, but you know me. She was my everything. I couldn’t let that baby, no matter who the father was, live without it’s momma. That baby isn’t mine. He doesn’t share my DNA. Anyway, she was screaming at me–about how I would not abandon her like my father abandoned Sandra when he knocked her up with Chase.” Pausing, I take a deep breath and close my eyes as I relive the day all over again, like I so often do.

  “Chase, my half-brother, you remember meeting him?” I pause again and look to her just in time to see her nodding. “His adopted sister is Keelie, their mom is the woman my father cheated on my mother with. Anyway, she turned in the seat and her foot hit the gas pedal causing her to blow through a red light. I climbed out and made sure she was okay, and then checked on who I now know was Hannah. She was unconscious. I knew my father would do anything to protect his name, in turn meant he’d do anything to protect me. So I took the wrap. I refused the breathalyzer and was escorted to the police station. I called the house, gave Zoila the message for you before he came on the line.”

  “Why though?”

  “I couldn’t imagine a c
hild without his mother, and if Hannah had died, Keelie would have gone to jail, I’m almost certain of it.”

  “Yet, your dumbass was willing to take the fall?” Her whisper was almost inaudible.

  Taking a long breath in, I chance a look in Adalyn’s direction. She’s pissed, but more than that, her eyes are glazed over by the tears pooling in her eyes. “Come ‘ere,” I whisper before pulling her to my chest. No hesitation. “I never lied to you, everyone else, yes. And as far as I’m concerned it will stay that way. No one needs to know anything about that day. It’s done and buried.”

  “It’s not right, you’re carrying a wrong doing that isn’t your own. Who is that helping?” She sniffles before looking up at me. “And how do you know Isaac isn’t yours?”

  “Whoa, how do you know his name? And who is it hurting? Me, because I can deal with it being my fault?” I ask confused.

  “I was there when she died; we couldn’t stop the bleeding or correct the damage already done to her body before he was born. Chase and her parents were there at the hospital for the next few days with Brax. Chase named him, according to the nurses’ station gossip; it was the name she’d chosen.”

  “Don’t judge me, but after Keelie’s funeral, the three of us, Brenton, Braxton, and I, volunteered to watch after him. Because they assumed Keelie wasn’t lying when she told them I was the dad, they didn’t argue. We packed the lil’ dude up and had a DNA test done.”

  “You have to have legal permission from the guardian,” she said skeptically.

  “I guess I did, I had the birth certificate. They listed me as the father. Isaac has the Timmons’s last name, though.” I quickly throw out his last name as soon as she tensed. “I’m one hundred percent not the father; I’d had the results mailed to the bungalow. Braxton told me when he found the envelope one weekend he was there. I’m surprised you didn’t see him.”

  Adalyn

  SAY WHAT? OUCH, MY chest hurts. The stabbing pain isn’t subsiding, I just wonder if it’s from the information I’m keeping from him, the feel of panic sinking in from being too close, or maybe both–damn anxiety.

  “Oh,” is all I can muster for a reply. Swallowing hard, I look up to see his worried eyes. “I left town for a bit, to deal with myself.”

  “Oh, good or oh, bad?” Braydon asks hesitantly while brushing the stray strands of hair from my face.

  “Um, shocked, relieved, beside myself.”

  “Well that’s better than bad.” He chuckles and I yawn; I swear it’s not a conversation deterrent, but sincere sleepiness. Well mostly.

  “I’m so sle–” I start to express my tiredness when another yawn rips through me. Once you start you can’t stop. “Sorry, sleepy. I’m so tired between working, the flight, game, and dinner.”

  “It’s fine, Ads.” Braydon’s voice is low and gravelly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Stopping him from pulling his arm from beneath me, I can’t help but smile. The pure look of surprise on his face almost causes me to laugh. Instead I bury myself into his side. “Stay.”

  Stay because before long, this will be only a fleeting memory.

  I haven’t slept so peaceful, so sound, so at ease… in years. My knees tucked into my chest with Braydon molded perfectly around me, his arms embracing me. Small bursts of air puffing against the stray hairs that escaped my ponytail. But the sound of voices in the distance break the cocoon I’ve escaped into, and I stir.

  “No,” Braydon murmurs. “They’ll go away.”

  “They won’t, you dork, and I gotta pee.” I laugh pushing him away just as his cell phone chimes. “Here,” I yawn tossing him his cell phone as I pass the dresser before moving into the en-suite bathroom.

  “Thanks.”

  Once I’m done and freshened up, I open up the door to an empty room and forge my way into the kitchen area. Let the chaos ensue.

  “Morning,” I shout after all the cat calls and inappropriate feedback from my delayed appearance. “Shut up.”

  “Addy, did Braydon tell you who he had dinner with on Thanksgiving?” Brenton booms after receiving a punch to the arm from none other than Braydon. Why is everyone now doing the slow-mo back and forth looks between me and Braydon?

  “No,” I respond cautiously. “Should I care?”

  “No, you shouldn’t.” Braydon stalls, shooting Brenton and Braxton a look before Madi starts to giggle uncontrollably.

  “Of course you shouldn’t. I mean why would you care that he had Thanksgiving dinner with Jase Fields?” she spurts out giggling more.

  “Say what?” I ask, certainly he didn’t hang out with the motocross champion…

  “No big deal. Are you hungry?”

  “Are you freaking kidding me? Why did you, wait, how did you, where did you… oh my God!” I squeal.

  “Wow, he really isn’t that special, I mean as a kid he was super annoying,” Madi says again laughing now.

  “Whoa, what?” I seem to be repeating myself just rewording my stupid question.

  “He’s my cousin’s best friend. Nothing special,” she clarifies. Nothing special my ass.

  “Told ya, pay up!” Braxton laughs holding his hand out to Brenton waiting for what I can only assume is payment for the bet that was placed before I came into the room.

  “Long story, you tell me about your husband, and I’ll tell you about Thanksgiving.” Braydon shrugs pointing at my left hand.

  “Let’s eat,” I suggest, and everyone but Braydon and I laugh and begin to move about. The two of us stay in a stare down, unwavering until his phone starts ringing and my focus is pulled to it, which is next to my arm. The screen is flashing “Ellie.” Who in the hell is Ellie? Of course I’m not moving now, I’m nosey.

  “Hey, Ellie,” he says into the phone listening intently while staring at me with a smirk that I really am considering smacking off that beautiful face.

  “Yeah, you saw that huh?”

  “Yes, that’s her, Adalyn.”

  “No, but we talked. Anyway, how’s Jase?”

  “What a dildo! How are you feeling?”

  “That’s amazing, Ellie.”

  “Okay, sounds good. Miss ya, babe, miss you too, Jasey Wasey.”

  Is he for real talking over speakerphone to Jase Fields? I doubt it. It’s probably a coincidence.

  “What?” Braydon asks once he ends the call, his bright blue eyes dancing with humor when he looks at my puzzled face.

  “You’re friends with Jase Fields?”

  “Uh, I guess? I’m friends with his girlfriend, and Madi’s about to be his cousin by marriage.”

  “Yeah, I put two and two together. I’m still a fan, obviously. Dude gets hotter and hotter as the years go on, but I hate the rumors that he’s planning to retire.”

  “I cannot confirm nor deny any claims you may have heard,” Braydon tells me–although I’ve never stopped following. And we are back to normal. No awkwardness… well there wasn’t until he looked down and stared at my damn hand.

  PERHAPS PHIL, THE GROUNDHOG, not seeing his shadow really does mean spring is just around the bend. That Jillian, the meteorologist for ABC news channel 23, has restored my faith in predictions. Hip hip hooray, it’s warming up! Alright, I’m not certain I buy that load of crap completely, but I’ve never been so dang happy for warmer weather in my life. I damn near froze to death. I contemplated the move from Alabama to Columbia every day, multiple times a day; I cursed Dr. Watret on the regular.

  Making my way into Emily’s Trough, the local micro-brewery, a sense of calmness fills me. Not that I’ve ever been here–I work and sleep and work some more, but I’ve heard it’s the best of the best in terms of drafts on tap, and my friends are here. Dr. Watret’s entire unit has the night and next shift off, the 8 a.m. – 8 p.m. crew that is. Paul, Em, Jennifer–erm Dr. Watret–Daniel, Angela, Nichole, and Lindsey are all here and waiting. I’m never late. Always first and waiting. That’s what the charge nurse’s responsibility is. Well, responsibility be d
amned, I’m off tonight. I’m late.

  Well into my third craft beer of, well I’m not sure what its name is, Paul just keeps my glass filled. Dr. Watret demanded work talk is strictly off limits or the punishment is scut duty for a week, and no one wants her scut work that’s created for interns. The music is on, the conversation is flowing, and the place is filling with patrons of all types. I’m actually surprised to see the vast population–college kids, professors that I’ve seen on campus, medical staff, and people on dates, just a random collection of sorts.

  “Holy shit, Adalyn, they have karaoke!” Em cries out after finishing off her beer.

  “Oh fun! You should go sing,” I suggest rolling my eyes. Em is the most tone-deaf person in our group on the floor. Her humming is even off key. It’s sad, but entirely hilarious. I’ve never been so entertained on a slow night. Sober Em is hilarious, so intoxicated Em has got to be a riot.

  “Sing with me!” she screams excitedly.

  “Oh no, I couldn’t even imagine. You should take—” looking around I think long and hard of who has tried to make my week hell and decide on Daniel, “—Daniel. I’ve heard he loves karaoke. You should definitely take him, Em.”

  “Okay, oh yes. Daniel, you are just in time! Let’s go sing!” Em beams and Daniel looks at us warily. I place a very hesitant look on my face matching Dr. Watret’s as he stares at me. If he only knew. Well, he will soon enough, and I’m fully aware payback is a bitch and a half.

  Soon Em and Daniel are belting out the lyrics to “Love Is a Battlefield” and we’re all cheering and clapping along with their complete failure of a performance. I mean, it’s like a dying cat mixed with a tragic train wreck. You want to stop watching, but you just can’t turn your eyes away. It’s completely awful and amazing all at once. Apparently the crowd agrees because they are showered with applause and laughter at the end of their performance. Sadly, I think this means they will try again later, and at this rate, the bar will be making a lot of money in regards to alcohol sales tonight.